(CS-029) Tissue regeneration with a fish skin acellular dermal matrix: clinical results exceeding expectations

Introduction: It is not often that we happen to use devices or dressings that, following the analysis of the clinical results obtained, prove to be even more effective than initially expected, based on the evidence presented by the manufacturing companies.

In the case of acellular dermal matrices, derived from fish skin, we were confronted with a biomaterial that was much more effective than we could have imagined at the beginning of our clinical experience, both in terms of efficacy and of quality of the results obtained, so much so that we now choose this type of biostimulation in 8 out of 10 cases treated.

Methods: We treated more than 100 skin lesions, acute and chronic, of different aetiology, with biostimulation by means of acellular dermal matrix derived from fish skin, evaluating the recovery time of the reparative/healing process and the results in terms of functionality and aesthetics.

Results: In more than 90% of the treated lesions, rapid healing was achieved (more evident in “fresher” lesions). However, the most striking aspect was to note that the newly formed tissue had reached such a degree of regeneration that it often could not be distinguished, functionally and aesthetically, from the surrounding tissue remaining internal ab initio, taking on the characteristics of the native tissue and integrating seamlessly with it.

Discussion: The use of fish skin as an acellular biostimulant in tissue repair processes, probably due to its particular morphology, almost superimposable to that of human dermis, allows true regeneration of damaged tissues. This is very different from the scarring processes typical, not only of spontaneous healings, but, often, also of repairs by means of different dermal matrix or skin substitutes. The stimulation of the cytokines released in the process results in an unusual and powerful stimulus to modulation of all stages of the healing process, with events enhancing each other until the formation of a neo-tissue virtually indistinguishable (at least clinically) from the original one.